Out of the Guggenheim Museum's clutches and into my collection!

[delekkerste]

Well, tomorrow I'll be receiving my first piece of artwork from Canadian artist Marcel Dzama! Some of you may know his art from his album covers for Beck and They Might Be Giants. As you can readily tell, he was influenced by comic books growing up (one of his drawings features Captain America). I met him at his show at the David Zwirner Gallery (one of the A-list contemporary art galleries in New York) last year and he said he was an admirer of both Kirby and Ditko.

 

Anyway, getting this piece is such a thrill - it was one of about a dozen drawings that Dzama specially offered the Guggenheim Museum last fall. I am on the Guggenheim's acquisition committee for young collectors and we voted to acquire several of these Dzama drawings for the Museum's collection (his work is also owned by the MoMA and the Tate Collection). My favorite example was the 1998 drawing "Will Work For Food". Well, at The Armory Show last week, I found out that this piece was somehow not among the sub-group ultimately selected by the Guggenheim's curators and that it was still available at Zwirner - naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to purchase it.

 

Here it is - enjoy!

[thehumantorch]

Very nice piece. It's nice to hear about his love of Kirby and Ditko.

[Bronty]

Congrats! what can you tell us about the piece.

[delekkerste]

Congrats! what can you tell us about the piece.

 

This was part of a group of drawings that Dzama had kept at this grandmother's house until last year. He hadn't put them on the market and offered this special group of pieces to the Guggenheim (obviously a big honor for an artist).

 

The piece is 12.5"x10", ink and watercolor on paper. Most of his work consists of small-scale drawings like these featuring humans, animals and imaginary characters in a "whimsical and macabre" world, though he has branched out into collage, sculpture and dioramas, as well as doing polyptychs (basically larger images consisting of several of these small drawings put together). There is a dark sense of humor, sometimes surrealistic, that runs through many of these and there are recurring themes, characters and symbols/motifs (e.g., bats) in the artwork. The prices range from about a few thousand dollars on the low end to 6-figures for some of the dioramas he's done.

 

Some of his more recent images have gotten more violent and political in nature as well as more overtly sexual (something he has never shyed away from, but he's taken it to a new level - there was a nice Dracula diptych for sale that I wanted to get when I saw it at The Armory Show...until I looked down and saw that Drac had mysteriously lost his pants somewhere. :doh: )

[Pirate]

how do you think drac opens the coffin in the evening since his arms are always crossed.

[delekkerste]

how do you think drac opens the coffin in the evening since his arms are always crossed.

 

[MutantKeys]

Very nice, Gene (thumbs u

[comix4fun]

Congrats Gene. I really like that piece.

 

When I saw the Title of this thread I expected to hear a story that ended with you doing something like this inside the museum:

[delekkerste]

 

Actually, it started off kind of like this:

[MutantKeys]

Great movie...